Thursday, June 28, 2012

RUSH: I want to go back to the Grooveyard of Forgotten Favorites.
Our archives. By the way, I think this is important. Doesn't mean
anything now. It does not have the force power, but the four judges,
justices who dissented -- Scalia, Alito, Thomas, Kennedy -- made it
plain in their dissent that this was nothing constitutional about this
act. They found nothing in it. They plainly said, in their dissent,
the whole thing should have been tossed out. You can't have a greater
divide than what we had. You've got the four libs, who, it's never even
considered that they might change their tune. And the chief justice,
who we know now I think is a creature of the Washington establishment, a
creature of the notion that government is the center of the universe.
It's pretty obvious. But the four justices who dissented, they didn't
even want to get into the idiosyncrasies of the majority opinion. They
found the whole thing tossable.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, a lot of court experts are saying that the dissent
actually reads like a majority opinion but with criticism of the actual
majority tacked on at the last minute. In other words, the dissent is
just... Again, this is speculation. These so-called court experts are
looking. They are now reading both opinions and they say, "This dissent
sounds like it was the majority opinion, like it started out as the
majority opinion." And some of these Court Watchers are now saying, "It
looks like Roberts was somehow convinced to switch sides along the way."

Ah, this is just gossip. It's interesting for the sake of it. But
back in May, there were rumors floating around relevant legal circles
that a key vote was taking place and that Roberts was feeling tremendous
pressure from unidentified circles to vote to uphold the mandate. And
that's all they were. They were just rumors. I don't know who was
applying the pressure and don't even know if it's true. It's just
gossip. This is the kind of stuff you can expect a lot of in the
aftermath. (interruption)

What do you mean, "No"? (interruption) Well, okay. Snerdley reminds
me... (interruption) You're talking about Leahy? Senator Leahy went to
the floor of the Senate and did... Eh, you might say he threatened
Justice Roberts. There were senators that went to the floor. It was
unprecedented. There were really intimidating things said. We reported
on it this week, in fact. There were intimidating things said about and
to Justice Roberts. And I remember the reaction, "Ah, he's not gonna
care about that, Rush! Come on, now. He's the chief justice Supreme
Court. That stuff happens all the time."

You're gonna be reading about this kind of gossip. You probably will
see it intensify as the afternoon and evening wear on that Roberts
switched. This is a theory. Remember, now: Everybody, everybody thought
the mandate was going down. Everybody did! The media was sure. In fact,
the media was writing stories on what a worthless court this was. Roger
Simon of Politico. It was really intense. All last week and early in
this week, everybody thought it was history. That's why there was utter
shock.

By the way, this wasn't the only decision. Are you ready for this?
The Supreme Court struck down the Stolen Valor Act today. Do you know
what the Stolen Valor Act is? Essentially the Supreme Court just said
it's perfectly fine to lie about medals and awards that you receive in
combat. "The Supreme Court struck down the Stolen Valor Act on Thursday,
saying that the First Amendment defends a person's right to lie -- even
if that person is lying about awards and medals won through military
service. ...

"In its 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court justices said [today] that as
written, the act is too broad and ignores whether the liar is trying to
materially gain anything through his or her false statement, which
would be more akin to fraud." So, if your neighbor starts running around
saying he got the Medal of Freedom, Medal of Honor, the Purple Heart,
whatever, it's perfectly fine. He can go make a fake medal and he can
hang it around his neck. It's perfectly fine. No problem. Now, if he
tries to make money off it...

Well, no. He can still do it. Justices said that only if these liars
were trying to profit materially would they have struck down the law.
But the First Amendment gives them the total right, the freedom to lie
about it.

(interruption) I know. You CAN make it up! You can literally
go out and you can make it up. Purple Heart, Medal of Freedom, Medal of
Honor, whatever. (interruption) See, if you go out... (interruption) I
don't know. There might be "hope for Sandusky." It depends. I don't know
if they'll legalize pedophilia or not.

We'll have to wait and see if
it's in the health care bill.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: When I said "court watchers" earlier, I should have cited it's a
blog. The Volokh Conspiracy. There's a blogger who is talking about the
pressures that were put on John Roberts to change his vote. They're
analyzing this, and through much of the dissent, they've got Scalia
referring to "the dissent," and there were notes that Ginsburg was
writing the dissent. I remember reading earlier in the week that Justice
Ginsburg was writing the dissent. The clear impression from court
watchers was that the mandate was struck down.

And now there's a theory that somebody got to John Roberts. I really
hate even passing this on. When I say, "Somebody got to John Roberts,"
one of the guesses is Obama's public assertions that the court was going
to marginalize itself and become irrelevant is something people were
speculating might have influenced Roberts. Not that somebody threatened
him. I don't want anybody putting words in my mouth. It's just going
around a blog and it will probably be amplified on as the day goes on.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: It doesn't matter as to the outcome whether or not Chief
Justice Roberts was intimidated and threatened, but it does matter.
Finding out conclusively won't change anything, but it will be quite
eye-opening for people if it is established that the public intimidation
of the chief justice by Obama and senators and so forth resulted in a
changed vote. That will de-validate the court in terms of people's
respect more than any decision could, whatever it would be.

Time will tell.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I mentioned earlier the Volokh Conspiracy. It's a blog that
circulates in legal circles, and apparently, ladies and gentlemen, a lot
of people are doing what you and I are doing. "What in the name of Sam
Hill happened here?" It was thought, and nobody knew for sure, but
there were tea leaves, and I'm an expert now in the tea business. I
know tea leaves, and there were tea leaves out there that the mandate
was going down. The White House thought it was going down. The media
thought it was going down. And, in fact, the first announcement today
was the mandate was ruled unconstitutional. That was the first thing
that got reported.

And then it was a few short seconds later that the first "uh-oh"
came. Wait a minute, the mandate's unconstitutional, but the whole
thing stands because Chief Justice Roberts is calling it a tax? So
after the shock wore off, people started trying to figure out what in
the heck happened. And all the news networks, even CNN got it right,
reported that the mandate was struck down. Fox reported it was struck
down. AP reported it struck down. Washington Post reported the mandate
was struck down. It was a cruel trick to play on the American people.
Mandate struck down, and mere seconds later, "uh-oh."

Now, the Volokh Conspiracy. It's a post by gentleman named David
Bernstein. Scalia’s dissent, at least on first quick perusal, reads
like it was originally written as a majority opinion (in particular, he
consistently refers to Justice Ginsburg’s opinion as 'The Dissent')."
Earlier this week there were stories that Ruth "Buzzi" Ginsburg was
writing the dissent. That did leak. And these guys are referencing it
here at the Volokh Conspiracy blog, and they say that in his dissent,
Scalia consistently refers to Justice Ginsburg's opinion as the
dissent.

"Back in May, there were rumors floating around relevant legal
circles that a key vote was taking place, and that Roberts was feeling
tremendous pressure from unidentified circles to vote to uphold the
mandate. Did Roberts originally vote to invalidate the mandate on
Commerce Clause grounds, and to invalidate the Medicaid expansion, and
then decide later to accept the tax argument and essentially rewrite the
Medicaid expansion to preserve it? If so, was he responding to the heat
from President Obama and others, preemptively threatening to
delegitimize the Court if it invalidated the ACA? The dissent, along
with the surprising way that Roberts chose to uphold both the mandate
and the Medicaid expansion, will inevitably feed the rumor mill," which
it is doing.

Now, I want to be very careful, 'cause none of this matters in terms
of the outcome today. If people found out, if they could prove that
Roberts changed his vote because of intimidation, it won't change
anything about this outcome. And I don't think anybody is ever gonna be
able to firmly establish that this happened. So I don't want to be
misunderstood here. But this decision is so shocking to people. Folks,
there's nothing constitutional about this law. It is utterly
shocking. What happened today is disgraceful, and that's why the rumor
mill is ginning up, because people are trying to find a logical
explanation because the Constitution effectively didn't exist today when
this decision was announced.

And the people trying to figure this out are obviously going to look
into the rumor mill and try to find some way of explaining it. It's not
gonna change anything. So you might say it's pointless to focus on it,
other than it being gossipy and interesting in that regard. However,
if it were ever confirmed as true that a chief justice, any justice, was
motivated by virtue of threat and intimidation to change a vote, if the
threat of intimidation and whatever else can result in vote changing or
a vote, period, then of course you'd have to conclude that essentially
you got organized crime running the show, not the Constitution.
Organized crime definitionally, not literally.

There's another blog out there that is rolling with the same theory.
It's called Legal Theory Blog, and they've come up with the same
thought. And they've got an article: "Evidence that the Votes Shifted
After Conference (Initial Vote to Declare Mandate Unconstitutional)."
They're looking at this. And, by the way, all of this is permissible.
They can vote, change their votes whenever they want, up until the time
of announcement, or whatever limit they place on themselves. The
justices in the court are not bound by their first votes, by their
original votes. It has a larger meaning, obviously, and it takes me
back to Artur Davis. I'll read you the second paragraph of Artur Davis'
e-mail today.

"But there is a larger story: this result shows the left’s continuing
capacity to shape elite opinion by marginalizing positions that roughly
half the country holds." What he means, conservatism has been
marginalized to be kookville. "Just as the left has caricatured
opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion as retrograde and extreme,
it just pulled off the same feat in the context of Obamacare: the case
was made, and Roberts bought it, that a Court that has struck down 169
congressional statutes would somehow be dangerously activist if it added
a 170th one to the mix. Its an undemocratic, disingenuous sleight of
hand that the left is practicing, but it is winning: the cost is that it
only widens the gap between Middle America and the elite."

So his point here, is that whatever intimidation was used on Roberts,
it was, "Hey, Judge, do you really want to be thought of as a nutcase
kook right-wing extremist?" And that's what Artur Davis said, whatever
the pressure was, and if there was such pressure, that's how it
manifested itself. Anyway, folks, I feel nervous even mentioning all
this stuff to you because it gets into the area of pure speculation and
gossip, and I want you to understand that that's what it is. And
there's a reason for it. This is inexplicable to people, and they're
trying to understand it. What in the hell happened here? What happened
to the Constitution? That's why all of this is being visited the way
it is. But no matter what the speculators come up with, it's not gonna
change the outcome today.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:
Okay. Look, let's cut to the chase here, folks. The reason that I'm
nervous with all this speculation that Chief Justice Roberts "caved" and
who "got to him" and who intimated him is simple. The reason I'm having
trouble with this is that I don't think that's what happened. I believe
I mentioned earlier this week (it might have been yesterday or the day
before) that I had been warned years ago. I was in a conversation about
justices on the court and how they respond to public pressure in the
Washington Post Style Section.

You know, the usual obligatory way you go and discuss the way that
the media tries to influence outcome of votes on the Supreme Court. And
all those conversations centered around Justice Kennedy as the swing
vote. And I was warned, "It's not Kennedy you have to look out for. It's
Justice Roberts." I can't tell you who told me. No, no! I know who it
is. It's not that I've forgotten. It's that I can't mention it. I think
really what happened here is not a cave. I don't think there was a cave,
folks.

I think Chief Justice Roberts is establishing his legacy. I think
it's what he wanted to do. I think this is his imprimatur. This is The
Roberts Court, like we had The Warren Court and we had The Rehnquist
Court.

This is The Roberts Court. This is his stamp on it. I know it's
fun to think about the intimidation that might have occurred and who
succeeded with it and so forth. There's also... I don't want to mention
any names on this, either, because I don't mean to embarrass anybody.
But the other thing going on that you might have seen or heard yourself
is this:

"Hey, wait a minute, Rush! Rush, wait a minute! Didn't this tax
increase originate in the Senate? Aren't the taxes in the Obamacare from
the Senate and therefore they're unconstitutional?" Well, where are we
gonna go on that? We gotta go back to where? The very same court that
just said it's okay! So what do we do? Okay, even if that's a valid
point. I understand this kind of stuff is gonna happen on a day like
this. People are grasping at straws. They're trying to look at
something, anything they can grab onto to explain this and to give us
some hope that we can reverse this.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I have my wits about me, folks. I always do. I am not
sidetracked. I am not diverted. I am not distracted, nor am I
intimidated. I'm gonna tell you exactly what happened here, and it's
not what the rumor, speculation is. I understand that. This decision's
inexplicable to people. They're desperately trying to come up with an
explanation that would fit in their minds. "My gosh, what happened
here?"

Here's what happened. The Supreme Court, a majority of the Supreme
Court, found Obamacare unconstitutional. They found the mandate
unconstitutional. The chief justice, John Roberts, kicked into activist
mode and found a way around that. I don't care if he found a way
around it because he was intimidated by Obama, or Patrick Leahy, or
somebody in the media. I don't care. Because I don't think he was. I
think he did what he wanted to do. He has sided with the liberal
justices more often than not in previous decisions. I just throw that
out as a statistic, not as evidence. I think he's building a legacy.
This is what he wanted to happen. He found a way for it to happen. And
so now, folks, it's game on. And I know some of you may get sick and
tired of always being in this position. Why is it always game on? Why
is it always us that have to do -- well, it's the way of the world. It's
simply the reality we face today.

We
are up against people who believe in tyranny. We are up against people
who do not want there to be individual freedom and liberty in this
country. That's what we face. We don't face people who like a level
playing field with the will of the people being the determining factor.
It's not the people we're up against. We're up against people who do
not like the US Constitution. We're up against people who do not like
this country as founded. We're up against people who want to change
it. They have not liked it for a long time or they've never liked it.
We don't have time to try to analyze why. We don't have time to try to
figure out how they ended up being this way.

We now are governed by a monstrous assault on our personal liberty
and freedom. We are governed by it. We are living under its thumb.
Jackboot. And it is now time to wrap this monstrosity around Obama's
head. He will not tell anybody what this bill means. It's up to us.
And we can't even count on Romney to do this. All we can do is hope
that he gets it right. We have to tell people what this bill is, and we
have to be able to show them and tell them that's what this bill is and
explain it. This bill is death panels.
This bill is massive taxes on our behavior. We have to be able to
explain that what happened today does not mean free health care for the
poor. If anything, it means the poor will lose their health care, what
with this Medicaid expansion.

We have death panels now. We have massive taxes, tax increases. We
have taxes on our behavior. We have a tax if we choose not to have
health insurance. You young people who don't want to buy health
insurance because you don't need it yet. Too bad. If you don't, you
pay a fine, and there are 16,000 IRS agents newly hired who are going to
be enforcing this thing. There are 2700 pages in this monstrosity.
There are going to be regulations that haven't even been dreamed up yet
because, as the bill states countless times, "As the secretary shall
determine." The secretary of Health and Human Services can pretty much
write the law as he or she goes.

There will be denial of care. Not everybody's gonna get health care,
whether they're insured or not. It's gonna be determined that some
people's health care is not worth the cost, either the disease is too
far advanced or the disease is too far advanced and they're too old, or
perhaps they're not of the right political party. Don't you dare
discount that. We are up against people who want us -- Artur Davis is
exactly right -- marginalized. Half of this country they want
marginalized as extreme wacko alien kooks. These are people that would
be happy to deny your grandmother health coverage if you didn't vote for
Obama, and I am not exaggerating. These are people who itch,
bureaucrats and so forth, who itch for that kind of power over people.
This law provides it.

Rationing, it's all part of the mix. We're $16 trillion in debt.
Not everybody's gonna get health care. And I don't care what Obama
says, not everybody's gonna get the best health care. Not everybody's
gonna get equal health care. Not everybody's gonna get equal
insurance. Nothing Obama says about this has very much relationship to
the truth. You're not gonna hear about any of this stuff that I'm
telling you. But it is game on. We're gonna have price controls,
because premiums and things, prices of health care are going to
skyrocket. And these experts, these statists, the people who want total
dominion and control over your life are gonna be shocked, because some
of these people are true believers and they really believe all the
propaganda.

They believe it's gonna be cheaper. They believe it's gonna get more
plentiful, and when it doesn't they are going to be shocked and stunned
and they're not going to understand it, just like when every other
program of theirs fails, they're clueless. All they want is credit for
their good intentions. But they're gonna have to deal with the failure.
They're gonna have to deal with the problems this bill creates. So
there will be rationing. There will be price controls. There will be
massive deficits. And all of this needs to be wrapped around the head
of Barack Obama and every Democrat running for reelection who supported
this thing, which is every one of 'em. That's where we are. That's
what this is, and now this precedent, set by this ruling today, where
the government can tax behavior, not just your income, not just your
user fee at a public park or a federal park, or not just your gasoline
tax. Now sky's the limit. Whatever they want to tax, they can. That
was just affirmed via this decision today.

Now, I must say there are some people out there... It doesn't matter
who. And this is quite natural, too. I understand this psychologically.
There are people who are trying to point out positive aspects in the
Roberts ruling. There are people who are saying, "We gotta be very
careful, Rush! John Roberts is a George Bush appointee. We don't want to
dump on John Roberts." Um, sorry. This is an appalling, disgraceful
decision -- and it's going to be remembered as such.

This decision, this ruling originally was found to be
unconstitutional. According to the Commerce Clause, it was
unconstitutional. And what happened was the chief judge found a way,
going activist, to make sure this bill survived. And it was the chief
justice who accepted a very little used administration argument that,
"Hey, it's tax," even though we played the tape where Obama said it
wasn't a tax. He went to the mat telling George Stephanopoulos in 2009,
"It's not a tax increase, George."

They knew that if this bill were sold as a tax increase, it'd fail.

Obama was out there saying, "Nobody who makes under $200,000 a year
will see their taxes go up as long as I'm president." Everybody's taxes
go up and sometimes monstrously high here. Obama went to the end of the
world trying to convince people this is not a tax increase. And when the
mandate was running into trouble, then they tried to say, "Well, maybe
it is a tax." They sent their little Verrilli up to the court to argue,
"It could be a tax." They weren't excited about it. They didn't want to
sell it that way.

It turns out they didn't have to. The chief judge found it! He said
(summarized), "You know what? I'm just gonna call it a tax. The
government can do that. They can't make everybody buy health insurance
with the mandate, but they can with the tax code." That's what happened
today. It's an appalling, disgraceful decision.
END TRANSCRIPT

“How many voices in our materialist society tell us that happiness is to be found by acquiring as many possessions and luxuries as we can? But this is to make possessions into a false god. Instead of bringing life, they bring death.”- Pope Benedict XVI

"This past Wednesday I was in part of the hospital that was devoted to people who have memory problems like my father. The people here may have no idea who I am but they light up at the sight of a collar. People who cannot carry on a conversation click “on” and join in prayer as if there were little wrong with them, their faces relaxing in this moment of peace amidst the chaos of illness."- Fr. Valencheck

"The priest's life is not his own. He does not live it for himself and his personal fulfillment, but for the salvation of souls."- Fr. Richtsteig

"I am convinced that if we simply follow the liturgical books, say the texts and carry out the gestures properly, in a style continuous with our tradition, the Church’s liturgy has power the capture minds and hearts and transform them.

I starting forming this conviction before I became a Catholic through my experience of Novus Ordo Masses done in an entirely Roman traditional style, closely following the books.

The late Msgr. Richard Schuler would eventually articulate to me in words what I was experiencing in the church. "Just do what the Council asked… do what the Church asks."

Why is worship well executed according to the mind of the Church so effective?

Christ is the true Actor in the sacred action of the Church’s worship. He makes our hands and voices His own as He raises our petitions and offerings to the Father for His glory and our salvation.

Christ’s Holy Church has determined the way by which we may have this encounter with mystery in the liturgy, be taken up in the sacred action.

Although we have the right to our Rite celebrated as the Church desires, liturgy is not about me or us or even you in the pews." - Fr. Zuhlsdorf

"After celebrating Mass facing the Lord I can report these favorable effects from the priest's point of view:

1. I don't have to worry about where to look
2. I don't have to worry about what my face looks like
3. I can weep at the beauty and wonder of it all without concern
4. I can worship more freely and fully
5. I feel more at one with the people of God
6. I am on a journey to God with the people
7. I am not the focus of attention
8. The elevation of the host and the Ecce Agnus Dei have become more of a focus
9. I feel more part of the great tradition
10. I can't see who's not paying attention and feel I have to do something to get their attention back." - Fr. Longenecker

"My rector in Denver, when he was a young priest, was eating dinner at his secretary's house, a widow from Sicily. Thinking he was polite he said, 'If you wish you can call me Michael.' She stopped, put her hand on her hip, and, pointing at him with her wooden spoon, said, 'Don't think I call you Father because I think you're better than me! I call you Father to remind you who you're supposed to be and how you're going to be judged by our Lord!' He passes that lesson on to all his seminarians."- Fr. Andrew

Decalogue Against Temptation

1. Do not forget that the devil exists.
2. Do not forget that the devil is a tempter.
3. Do not forget that the devil is very intelligent and astute.
4. Be vigilant concerning your eyes and heart. Be strong in spirit and virtue.
5. Believe firmly in the victory of Christ over the tempter.
6. Remember that Christ makes you a participant in His victory.
7. Listen carefully to the word of God.
8. Be humble and love mortification.
9. Pray without flagging.
10. Love the Lord your God and offer worship to Him only.